Woohoo, unlimited toppings! It’s like a goddamn TCBY. Sorry, I was just checking out the lovely photo to the left and the guy who seems really drawn to the plastic signage announcing this miracle of saladeriffic innovation. There would have to be some sort of gimmick to draw people into this place, as it just looks (and acts) like every other shop in the lunch smorgasbord, Midtown restaurant genre. These places exist just to satiate the in-a-hurry corporate worker who eats at his computer with his tie thrown over his shoulder. While I most definitely don’t wear a tie, I am always in a hurry and almost always eat with my face bathed in the pixilated glory of my Mac desktop. I only chose this joint amongst the sandwich place glut because I was sooo sick of the other three or four places that I normally haunt that I would have eaten out of the trash can behind Whole Foods before I would have gone back to any of them. So I walked into the first restaurant I came across that I had never been to–and it turned out to be exactly the same as the other places. So I got a Mexican panini that I hadn’t seen at my norms, and despite its weird, Chalupa-ish quality, it wasn’t totally unenjoyable. Now that I’ve been there, done that, I can go back to my usuals and put my taste buds back on cruise control. [MF]
178 5th Ave.
212/206-8922